Ethics newsweekly is provided by the lilly endowment, an indianapolisbased private Family Foundation dedicated to its founders interest in religion, Community Development and education. Additional funding also provided by mutual of america. Designing customized individual and Group Retirement products. Thats why were your retirement company. Welcome, im bob abernethy. Its good to have you with us. This week at the vatican, pope francis urged prayers for ebola victims and called on the International Community to do Everything Possible to eradicate the virus. The World Health Organization said the rate of new cases may be slowing in liberia, the worsthit country but the fight was far from over. During a visit to west africa, u. S. Ambassador to the United NationsSamantha Power said a much Greater International Response is needed to defeat ebola. A delegation of top religious leaders came to the u. S. This week seeking help for their besieged community in iraq. Isis has particularly targeted the anxious religious minority, which isis calls pagan. More than 300,000 have been displaced and now need humanitarian aid. The delegation says it has documented the names of nearly 7,000 girls and young women who have been kidnapped by isis and forced into sexual slavery. The group urged the International Community to do more to stop what it called the extermination of uzites. We knew there was hatred, but not to this extent where people did not see us as human beings. They should no longer exist in what they call muslim lands. God will call muslims account accountable for allowing them to remain in the middle east. They documented kidnaps, forced marriage and sexual abuse of girls and young women in nigeria by the Islamist Group boko haram. The report says more than 500 women have been abducted there in recent years, including the 270 school girls kidnapped in april. The Catholic Arch Diocese of new york plans to merge 14 of its parishes with others, according to Cardinal Timothy dolan. In a newspaper column, the new york archbishop said it was not feasible to keep so many parishes open because of the dwindling numbers of catholics and priests. Meanwhile the archdiocese of chicago citing budget deficits, announced this week that it would close or merge 14 Elementary Schools at the end of the academic year. Earlier this year in april, 29yearold Britney Maynard was given six months to live after being diagnosed with advanced brain cancer. She made headlines when she pledged to end her life with the help of a doctor rather than continue to suffer. Mayna maynards announcement caused much debate. Joining me is kathy lynn grossman, Senior National correspondent for Religion News service who has been writing about death and dying for many years. Kathy, welcome. Good to have you here. Thank you, bob. How do we all divide on this . Americans divide fairly sharply on this issue. It depends on their value system. If their values are primarily based on what they believe and the personal choices they want to make, personal control over things, value system versus people who make their decisions based on religious choices that god alone decides the day of your death. Its pretty evenly divided . It is. Research has known. Whats the difference between what we are talking about here and euthanasia . There is a very sharp difference. Euthanasia is deliberately killing somebody else with or without their consent. This is physicianassisted dying. In the five states where its legal, someone following rigorous regulations, how long they lived there, Britney Maynard moved from california to oregon specifically to qualify for this you given a prescription for lethal drugs. The person takes the drugs themselves if and when they choose to. Not everyone who gets the prescription ever uses it. What about the family, the other people involved in this . It must be terribly difficult. Its terribly difficult when somebody is dying. The best thing you can do for the people you love is to have advanced directives. Talk with the people who care about you and tell them what your wishes are for how you would like to be cared about when your days are nearing an end. Spell it out in writing. Make sure they have a copy. Choose someone to speak for you when you cant speak for yourself. Do families typically all agree on this or not . No, they dont, which is why its really important to have these conversations. There are many resources that you can find online or by mail that will help you talk about this or talk with your doctor, talk with your clergyman to help work this out. Name somebody very specifically you want to have the decision. You do not want to have to open your eyes in a hospital bed and have your physicians, children and ethicists arguing about your care. Kathy lynn grossman, many thanks. Thank you. We have a lucky sevenson story about the growing number of benefit corporations or bcorps. They are forprofit companies that think their service to their workers and communities is as valuable as maximizing profit, and they insist in the long run those twin missions are good for their shareholders. This is a Company Called united by blue. For every product they sell, they promise to remove a pound of trash from oceans and waterways, and they dont just send a check. They host cleanups across the country. Its one of over 1,000 businesses in the u. S. Now designated as a benefit corporation or bcorp. They are doing it because they are guided by a sense of whether they call them values or ethics or spirituality or religion, whatever it might be, thats their center of gravity that says even when no one is looking, and even if nobody else cares, i care. And this is how i want to behave. Jay cohen gilbert is one of three Stanford University school mates who did extremely well in business then cofounded the bcorp movement. In 2006, they started a Nonprofit Organization called blab, dedicated to using the power of forprofit businesses to solve social and environmental problems. Increasing number of states have approved new legislation promoted by blab, making it easier for companies to commit to Higher Standards of purpose and accountability. The idea is to change the conversation from you and i supporting just a good product to you and i supporting a good company. Mark houlihan and andrew are bcorp cofounders. Lots of us can feel really good and you can have lots of people who want to live in a different economy, but the rules of the old economy are an impediment often. We have to do things like change laws so that its clear that investors can choose to invest in these kinds of businesses and create longterm value without being worried about getting sued by a shortterm investor who wants to think about nothing other than how much money they make this quarter. Through a stringent set of standards, blab measures a companys real impact on workers, the community and environment. In other words, they certify that the company is doing the good it promises to do. Have you had any corporations that lost their certification . You bet. We are a pretty pragmatic culture here in the u. S. We pretty much want to see performance. Not just a good Mission Statement on the law. Thats where things like a bcorp certification matter because it shows that folks are actually walking their talk. The King Arthur Flour Company is the oldest Flour Company in america, over 200 years old. Employeeowned and a bcorp. Their headquarters in vermont includes a warehouse and onsite bakery. Its an opportunity for us not to think about the bottom line, which, you know, is important but there are other things that are as important, the environment, our society, our community. All of our shareholders. All our stakeholders. Not just the bottom line. King arthur pays its employees well, offers Health Insurance for parttimers and gives its workers a week off each year to do community service. Jay rimmel says its caused employees to think more about giving. There is a local haven, homeless shelter, we volunteered there. Theres food shelf locally a lot of us volunteered for. People do readings for school kids. Its trickled down and pulled people into doing volunteer they wouldnt normally have thought of. Martin philip is in charge of the bakery, a selftitled bread head, he came to king arthur from the world of investment banking. Now hes proud to work for a company that cares about more than the bottom line. It means that we are looking at who we are within a community. It means that we are looking at who we are within the environment, so how are we taking care of our environment . What are the resources we are using, how could we do better . We want into crease our assessment on the environmental side. We decided to put in these electric vehicle charging stations, which we are one of 70 in the state of vermont. There are critics of the bcorp model. A common concern is at the very existence of bcorp implies there is something missing or lacking in conventional companies. We hear that all the time. We are not here to stand against anything. We are here to stand for something. Its not about tearing anybody down. Its about highlighting the leaders and showing people there is a better way to do business and everybody else can follow. He is a professor of Business Ethics emeritus at st. Thomas. He helped draft a document in 2012 entitled, the vocation of the business leader. Business loadership is a noble calling and an opportunity to practice catholic social teaching. Good goods, good work and good wealth are the three pillars of this vocation of the business leader, and all three of those principles are to be found in the Business Corp idea. But professor goodpastor says there are working problems with the bcorp seal of approval. Unscrupulous managers who in the name of doing good abuse the capital that was given to them, and make excuses because we didnt get a good return this year because we were busy doing what we had to do in the social sense. When in fact it was mismanagement that led to the poor returns that year. And there need to be safeguards for the shareholders. Corporate law generally favors the shareholders who invest to make a profit. Mark houlihan learned that first hand. The moment we sold the company, by law, the only thing we could consider at that time was maximizing shareholder value. It felt to me at the back end of that there had to be a better way. One of the more famous examples of the companys fiduciary obligations to the shareholders occurred in the year 2000 when ben and jerrys ice cream, the famous dogooder company was suddenly purchased by a european conglomerate. The founders were accused of selling out, but their lawyers said if they didnt sell, because the offer was above market price, they could be sued by the shareholders. With the bcorp designation that would be far less likely to happen. Welcome to ben and jerrys. Im going to be your tour guide today. Ill take you on a threepart tour of our factories. Youll see a quick video how the company got started. Ben and jerrys was allowed to continue its social mission and is a certified moneymaking bcorp. Its that bottom line that causes some to question the real value of b corporations. Can they compete at the bottom line . We know that b corps have gone out of business at a lower rate than Companies Like them in the rest of the economy. Not only do they survive and not only are they creating jobs, over 50 of bcorps in that period had 5 job growth. During the same fiveyear period where private industry in the u. S. Shed 7 million jobs. There have been over 40 studies done about b corporations like king arthur flour, comparing them to conventional companies. All whom have concluded that stronger environmental social and governance performance needs to longterm Value Creation for shareholders, period. Full stop. The timing may be ripe for Companies Pushing for more than just financial profit. Theres some Interesting Data thats come out recently about millennials who now represent over 50 of the work force. And that they are looking for something more than just money and their work. Students of today, at least the ones we see in our classrooms, want that larger meaning. Its not that theyre totally selfless or that theyre only altruists, but sure they want jobs and they want to have families and communities and resources, but thats not enough for them these days. I dont know if it ever was enough, but at least theyre more explicit these days about how important that is to them. As they sail away on Lake Champlain for their annual retreat, they feel the wind at their back. Blab certifies companies in 34 countries and over half the states improved the benefit corporation legislation. Im lucky severnson in burlington, vermont. Kent nurburn is an author whose speciality is listening to the stories of native americans. Their spirituality, their reveranc for nature. What hes learned by listening brought him a sense of personal forgiveness for the countrys treatment of native americans. Bob faw spoke with him. In the backyard of their minneapolis home, native americans jackie and kurt perform what they call a healing song. For many, what native american rituals and ceremonies mean, what indians believe and why has seemed a mystery, but in these books, it is expertly revealed and explained by this rum manied 68yearold white man, awardwinning writer and spiritual teacher kent nerburn. My job was to watch, record and serve in some capacity. To do what you have to do to make them open their hearts and to get the stories out they want to tell. Calling himself a guerrilla theologian who tries to find the spiritual in everything, he has spent a career writing about native american people. In this trilogy he using actual dialogues hes had with native americans spoken by fictional characters he calls spiritual story telling. My goal is to be present to their emotional reality and put it in people who, in the voices, in the characters of people that are real people, and try to make it so it speaks from honest emotions. He felt an obligation because of what happened in this country to the native americans. It was nothing less than cultural genocide, he told parishioners at st. Joan of arc catholic church. These are occupied people marked by extermination by relocation, starvation, military slaughter, and finally by reeducation that ripped the heart out of the traditional ways. What native americans suffered troubled kent, as well, and inspired miss writing. To earn forgiveness, to earn forgiveness for the shame in my blood. Shame in my blood. Thats you talking. That was me talking. I wanted to get forgiveness for the crimes of my culture. I feel like i carried the crimes of my fathers. And how do i make it right . So he began to explore and listen to native americans like jackie and her husband kirk, who initially was very skeptical about what this white outsider wanted. My folks, having been in the boarding schools, and when the boarding schools shut down, my generation being adopted out into nonindian homes, the abuses i experienced in that nonindian home, coming to terms with all of that, i had little faith in or trust in particularly white men. So of course, i think hes only looking for some way to exploit us, exploit our culture for his own purposes. It made native americans open up and eventually trust kent is that this white outsider really did listen. He listened. What i mean by that is, he intently heard me. There was something about his spirit when i talked to him that was very gentle, authentic. I think kent is he is such a remarkable man, but i think its because of his, you foe, his study, his theology, hes able to come to this place because of his spirituality. As he listened, what he found was far removed from the hollywood stereotypes, but who instead see everything in nature as living. For the native people the land is a life. The events on the land are life. The wind is alive. This degree of the land being alive and the land having its own spirit and its own story and its own teachings is part and parcel of the native way of seeing the world. Kirk and jackie explained how for them there is no distinct between the sacred and the everyday. And that the simplest objects like an eagle feather are reminders of something greater. There is nothing special about it and there is everything special about it. Right. Because of what he learned, kent told that catholic congregation they and all nonnatives would do well to embrace what native americans believe. We believe that what the creator had begin us is enough and the place he put us was where we belonged. For us, the world was a mystery to be honored, not a puzzle to be solved. One of his books celebrating native American Culture is now being made into a film. If we begin to appreciate that culture, he tells his readers, we would be far more careful how we labeled native americans. You named us savages, that made us savages. You made where we live the wilderness that. Made it a wild and dangerous place. Without even knowing it you made us who we are in your minds. A onetime sculptor with a ph. D. In art and theology, he game more sensitive because native americans have given him a gift, as he puts it, their world and their way of seeing have enriched my world and my way of seeing. What these folks do is they speak to the common humanity of us all while trying to acknowledge the uniqueness of the cultural manifestations. I want these folks to be healing books. It made my spirit happy that kent is able to do something that many people, nonnatives, can embrace and appreciate and understand and relate to, and who many native can say thank you, that was done very respectfully. Well done. So that brings me hope, absolutely. Ultimately, what he has learned and what he has written has brought kent the relief he was seeki